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Profile/Summary

Since early childhood, I have experienced a creative leaning both visually and in words. The desire to base my life & career around creative activity has persisted to this day. This section of my Website is designed showcase some of what I do to good effect.

I have a high standard of literacy reinforced by experience in small press journalism since 1993 and professional journalism since 1997. I have excellent speed-typing skills.

I’m a skilled cartoonist and visual developer, and have a particular strength in page design and typesetting for print. I’m computer literate at an advanced level ranging from word-processing to desktop publishing, image manipulation, custom logo design, etc. I have long-term experience with both PC and Mac platforms using software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign (CS5 conversant), Word, PowerPoint, Quark Xpress and much more. I also have middleweight Web development skills via hands-on experience since 1996.

I’m able to follow explicit, detailed briefs as well as tasks involving initiative, organisation and personal development. I can work effectively to specific deadlines. I’ve worked primarily as a freelance and in the current climate am definitely seeking new clients and greater financial stability. I believe I have a lot to offer in a variety of different areas.

Key Skills

»Excellent literacy & typing
»Advanced computer knowledge (PC and Mac)
»Strong visual developer
»Able to follow briefs faithfully
»Able to use initiative
»Obsessive eye for detail
»Strong organisational ability

Goals & Aspirations

My goals and aspirations are simple: I want my work to improve continuously, be the best it can possibly be and give me the satisfaction of a job well done. I’m my own harshest critic, which I believe restrains me from complacency and enables me to move forward positively. The feeling that the current job is better than the last one is a warm glow.

In the long-term I hope I can feel that I have achieved something worthwhile and not only of personal satisfaction but of value to others in any number of ways—be it practical value, entertainment, information, etc. Although it’s usually said that a creative primarily creates for their own expression, for me the feeling of being appreciated and valued is a powerful reward. Working in an environment of feedback & exchange can provide positive motivation.

Without further ado, let’s move onto the work itself, which is really what this section is about…

Section Links

Trident Reach (Design / Editing)
Moonlight Shadows – Lon Chaney Jr (Research / Writing / Design)
Jack Kirby Quarterly (Editing / Writing / Design)
In Search of Steve Ditko (Research / Consultation)
Club Comicana (Writing / Drawing)
Photograph “Colorization”
General Illustrations
Bootleg DVD Covers (Design)

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For the Summer 2010 newsletter of the Birmingham charity Trident Reach (OPEL: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives), I was asked to produce a revamped design & layout, which I agreed to do on a voluntary (unpaid) basis. I felt it was an excellent cause to support in some way and something I’m more than happy to add to my CV/Portfolio.

The eight-page magazine in this instance needed to be completed at the eleventh hour with little advance planning and constitutes roughly six hours of work on my part. It was done using Adobe InDesign with colour office printing (rather than press printing) in mind. To the left, the cover; to the right, interior page three. I also recently designed a poster/flyer for Trident’s participation in the EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon.

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Since the end of 2008, I’ve been engaged on a piecemeal basis in writing an exhaustive biography and films-of book dedicated to actor Lon Chaney Jr (1906-1973). Publisher to be decided—two offers have been received; no advances offered. Approx 70,000 words of a projected minimum of 150,000 have been written to date and the book’s completion is expected to be sometime in 2010, time & schedule permitting. I’d also like to produce the book’s design if chosen publisher was agreeable, having already constructed a provisional cover layout. Distinguished film journalists such as Gregory Mank and Tom Weaver have provided much invaluable help and feedback. Below is the speculative cover layout and a write-up of the film Man Made Monster (1940), plus—just for fun, no connection with the book—a Wolf Man photo illustration.

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In 2008, Dez Skinn’s Quality Communications published a 15th Anniversary Special of Jack Kirby Quarterly, a magazine I self-published from 1993-1997, dedicated to the late, great comic book artist Jack Kirby (1917-1994). You can read more about JKQ here. The Quality issue was 68 pages, A4 format, and with Dez’s backing had fine printing and interior stock plus glossy colour covers. I produced the issue single-handed, from editing, interview transcription, feature writing, page design/layout and custom logo design. Software: Adobe InDesign and Photoshop (PC). Future ‘annual’ issues have been discussed as a possibility. For sale at Dez’s ebay store here.

Directly below, we see the front and back covers of the 15th Anniversary Quality edition, from September 2008, plus an aborted cover idea for the issue that would have followed. On the second tier we have interior pages from the 2008 book.

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Both from home and in-house at the Hotsauce office in Camden, I provided consultation and research for this BBC4 documentary hosted by Jonathan Ross. Work was done around February-May 2007; the show aired in September of that year. Amongst my duties, I wrote a series of briefs on prospective interview subjects, fact-checked and corrected existing briefs, wrote a detailed career timeline on Steve Ditko (the original Spider-Man artist) and offered a variety of factual corrections to the show’s provisional script, suggested and helped to arrange a number of on-camera interviews, and assisted the director, Peter Boyd Maclean in selecting and photographing a number of original artworks from Jonathan Ross’s personal collection. I also attended the filming of the interview with writer Alan Moore in Northampton on March 1st 2007. Below, screen grabs from show plus photo I had taken with Ross & Moore. My IMDB listing for the show.

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Club Comicana is a strip about two girls named Jenni (a down-to-earth, bolshy type) and Marie (a French goth-geek). I came up with the idea in 2006 and wrote a series of scripts, both for newspaper style presentation and four-page comic book format. I’ve recently been working on some new strips with these characters and the archive for those is here.

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Here are a couple of B&W stills from Lon Chaney movies that I added colour to. They are The Wolf Man (left) and San Antonio Rose (right) (both 1941). Incidentally, the small guy with Lon is Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges.

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Just that. Sundry illos on various themes!

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Well, why not! I designed a few covers for bootlegs of David Bowie concert DVDs back in 2004. Here are a couple of the ones I liked best.

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This section will probably be under construction forever as there’s always going to be new stuff I might want to add to it! Hope you saw something of interest…

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